Friday, January 26, 2018

Question: In Leviticus 21, God wants his priest to be whole.....person having any defect can't serve Him...can't give the food for God...but may eat of it. In Old Testament....in those olden days God was like this..... Is this the same today?

Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name! You are speaking mainly from the verses of Leviticus 21:16-24, "16 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying: ‘No man of your descendants in succeeding generations, who has any defect, may approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long, 19 a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, 20 or is a hunchback or a dwarf, or a man who has a defect in his eye, or eczema or scab, or is a eunuch. 21 No man of the descendants of Aaron the priest, who has a defect, shall come near to offer the offerings made by fire to the LORD. He has a defect; he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. 22 He may eat the bread of his God, both the most holy and the holy; 23 only he shall not go near the veil or approach the altar, because he has a defect, lest he profane My sanctuaries; for I the LORD sanctify them.’” 24 And Moses told it to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel."

Why should a defective person not offer bread to God?

All the Old Testament Scriptures symbolically described about a spiritual New Testament law of the Spirit which is the freedom in believing the gospel that is coming to free them from the law of sin and death which is effect of keeping the law (Rom 8:1–2). I mean the Law itself is not sinful (Rom 7:7). However, the Law defined sin and stirred up our natural rebellion against God’s rules, resulting in sin and death (Rom 7:13).

So we know that a defective person physically in the Old Testament was made to represent a spiritually defective person of unbelief of a evil heart in the New Testament (Heb 3:12; 2 Kings 5:26-27; Num 12:9-10), and also we know that the law got culminated in Christ Jesus who was not defective physically and not even one bone was broken when he was sacrificed before God on the Cross as a spiritual lamb (John 1:36; 19:36), and He had no sin and did no sin to be the only perfect acceptable sacrifice to God for our sins (1 Pet 2:22; 1 John 3:5; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 10:5-9). The unleavened bread speaks of the total sinlessness of Jesus Christ.

Paul says twice very clearly, "For whatever things were written before [in the Old Testament Scripture] were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." (Rom 15:4) and "6 Now these things became our [Old Testament] examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted... 11 Now all these things happened to them as [Old Testament] examples, and they were written for our admonition [in the New Testament], upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor 10:6, 11).

So the crux of the matter is, a defective person with sin should not offer the bread to God, because God hates sin as it destroys man and makes Him a rebel against His holy ways. It makes him disobey Him and His Word, and also causes disregard in ones heart for His holy name, so now because Christ Jesus was sacrificed for our sins to forgive all of our sins of the past, present and future, we as the friends and child of God should now "Cleanse out the old leaven of the carnal selfish old nature that we may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened [in the spirit (Eph 4:23-24; Rom 7:22; Philemon 1:6, 25)]. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed to make us new within and help us walk by the power of the new life of heaven and the nature of God." (1 Cor 5:7).

John 6:32-35 Jesus said to them, "32 I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 Sir, they said, "from now on give us this bread." 35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

Jesus died on the Passover day. For centuries this day had foreshadowed His dying for our sins as the sacrificed Lamb of God, and He commands His followers to keep the symbolic Passover as a remembrance or memorial of His sacrifice for us (Matthew 26:26-28; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). The Feast of Unleavened Bread, like the Passover, was revealed to the Israelites at the time of the Exodus (Exodus 12-13), and over the course of these days, the Israelites left the slavery of Egypt. In the New Testament, we get saved from sin by believing in the death of the sinless Passover Lamb of God who is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, which symbolizes freedom from the slavery of the sin, but after that we are keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread which is the removal and avoidance of leavening (an agent such as yeast that causes bread dough to rise in baking) was to symbolize our coming out of sin and the old Egyptian mind set of carnal flesh that encouraged it (Rom 7:15, 23, 25). Eating unleavened bread symbolized taking in God’s righteousness of faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 1:17; 4:5-6; Gen 15:6; Rom 3:9)— instead of having faith in one's own righteousness which comes through the law within our soul mind, so therefore coming out of sin is to rely on Christ by faith to accepting ourselves as the person we formerly were being figuratively put to death and buried with Christ and then, in effect, rising with Christ into a new way of living by allowing our spirit mind to influence our soul mind by renewing it by the voice of the Spirit that comes from our spirit man through the Word of God — which is His way (Heb 10:20).

The Scripture says, “Abel, on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard” (Genesis 4:4-5), because Abel offered his offering with faith and Cain did it with a evil heart of unbelief (Heb 3:12; 11:4; 1 John 3:12). So Abel's offering was accepted and Cains offering was rejected. What it does teach us is that, a person sending a defective person or gift to God rather than the best of his flock of children that God has given him or her, is a sign that sin rules his life rather than faith in God that will always want to give the best to God who has given him all. God did not tell the above instruction, i.e. not to let defective person come in to His Holy and most Holy Presence to offer gift to insult them, but to teach them a spiritual lesson that faith is prerequisite to please God always in their lives (Heb 11:6).

So let us always give the best to God with faith and clean out the old leaven of sin nature which spreads and influences wrongly everything around it, through the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and through confessing our sins to God and overcoming it through the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 5:6-7; 1 John 1:7, 9). The offering of bread to God is the service we offer to others in the name of Jesus by declaring to them the Gospel through our words and life we live for God by faith in Christ Jesus now (Luke 11:5-13). Also it is the meditation of the Word of God that we do to have communion with God to build our faith and offer it to God acceptably through Jesus Christ (Psa 19:14; 104:34).

Even the defective Levite who is born defective not because of his own will or parents will but to reveal the Glory of God to the earth, if he has faith, he is allowed to eat the Holy Bread because only the “clean” or faithful Levites could eat of God’s provisions for the Levites, and this group includes the defective people (Lev 21:22). Even David and his fighting men ate the holy bread from the temple when they were in hunger, because they had faith in God and revered Him (1 Sam 21:6; Matt 12:3-4, 7-8). Faith trusts in the mercies of God, and humbly accepts that everything that God gives is out of His benevolence and goodness of which we are not worthy by our works of any kind or intensity or time frame. This attitude pleases God always. There were several reasons a Levi who is unclean would not have been permitted to perform the sacrifices, and yet still would have been considered a faithful obedient child of God because of God's new mercies and grace given each day anew even to eternity ahead (Lev 21:1-20; Jude 1:21; 1 Tim 1:16).

So what have we learnt through all this?

"Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:16, NIV). In other words, no matter what our needs are, now we can approach the very throne of God with faith, because unlike the Old Testament times which restricted the sinful and defective from entering the Presence, we have a High Priest Jesus Christ who has consecrated and have made us holy through His very sinless blood, so through faith in Him and His sacrifice, God has given every child of God the privilege to enter the very Presence of God in heaven (Heb 10:14; 12:22-24; 9:24; 6:19-20; Rom 8:34). Through the blood of Jesus, we cannot be anymore conscious of our sins which have been already forgiven and forgotten by God when we confess it by faith or have confessed it already (Heb 10:17-18; 9:14). So we as the child of God whether defective or not through sin can now be bold through the blood of Jesus to approach the very Presence of God in heaven through our faith. The Great Protestant Reformer Martin Luther boldly declared, "Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ." In other words, this great man of God knew the real meaning of what it is to approach the throne of God through the blood of Christ again and again and again to make such a statement that a religious nut will condemn him any moment and declare it as a blasphemy. So praise God that the sinful and defective people of faith are welcomed in to the Presence of God now freely, while much to the dismay of those religious fervent law-keepers who are denied in to God's Presence because they think wrongly in unbelief that God is indebted to them, because they keep the law even now in our times. God is a no man's debtor at the end of the day and is never partial to any one person (Rom 2:11; 11:35-36; Acts 10:34).

Yes God has not changed at all in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament times, hear what God reveals about Himself through His Word, "God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Num 23:19, NIV).

The same Jesus the Son of God who lived during the Old Testament times and appeared to people of God as a Angel of God, commander of God, friend of man, wisdom of God which are all pre-incarnate appearance and revelation of Christ, is the same today and also will be the same in the future as the Scripture reveals that, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Heb 13:8).

Also James the apostle further says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." (Jam 1:17).

From the concrete evidence shown above from the Scripture we come to know that God has not changed, but the covenant promise of God which was old and worked by law keeping to reveal sin in man, has now been replaced with a new covenant promise of God which works by faith, and that which depends on the mercies of God rather on one's work to please God. God desires to show mercy, and does not want man to live by his own works which actually instead of attracting them to God, takes them away from God who hates pride which makes humans think that God is indebted to Him if he had been religious and have kept the law (Rom 10:4-5; Heb 8:13, 7-9). God says, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Hos 6:6; Matt 9:13). In other words, if we want to move beyond sacrifice to mercy, we need to get our hearts involved. The demand of the NT is much much higher than that OT, that no human can add up his imperfect works to stand before the NT law. The standard of righteousness has been raised to the highest level, and thereafter had been fulfilled by Jesus as a sinless perfect man who ever lived and pleased God. God substituted the life of Jesus on behalf of every believer who lives by faith in Him, to now live in love and liberty towards God and fellow humans in Christ Jesus. So the quality of life lived in the New Covenant made in the blood of Jesus actually lifts us high to take us to heaven and be seated with Christ (Eph 2:6), and then brings heaven back to us on earth and gives us a mission to spread the very Presence of heaven as its ambassador in all the earth (Matt 6:9-13; 28:18-20; 2 Cor 5:20). Now we as the heavenly Ambassador of Christ on earth disburse the fragrance of Christ (2 Cor 2:15), which is the Presence of God from heaven to all the world around us in our Character, life, living, joy, peace and righteousness (1 John 4:4; Matt 5:13; Rom 14:17).

May we bring glory to God through our lives lived on earth through our faith!

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